The Moghul Part 56

"I'll wait and see."

"There may be no time to 'wait,' English Captain Hawksworth. The times may require you to choose. If the Portuguese decide to act in the interest of one party here, will England act in the interest of the other? I want to know."

"The king of England acts in his own interest."

"But your king will not be here. You will be here."

"Then I will act in his interest." Hawksworth fixed Jadar squarely.

"And the king of England is not interested in who rules India. Only in free trade between us."

"But the one who rules India will have the power to permit or deny that trade. You know, there's an Indian folk tale of a Brahmin who once discovered a tiger in a well. He gave aid to the tiger, helped him escape from the well, and years later when the Brahmin was starving the tiger brought him a necklace of gold and jewels won from a rich man in a battle to the death. Do you understand?"

"I understand. But I still serve my king first."

Jadar listened silently, but his eyes were intent.

"And that king is English. For now." Jadar filled the last words with a tone of presumption that left Hawksworth uncomfortable. "But enough.

Let's talk of other matters. I a.s.sume you are aware the Portuguese will probably try to have you a.s.sa.s.sinated when you reach Agra. Already there are many rumors about you there. Perhaps you should remember your own personal interests too. As well as your king's. One day, I think, we will meet again. If you are still alive."

"And if you are still alive."

Jadar smiled lightly. "We're both difficult to kill. So we both must think of the future. Now I have a last question for you."

Jadar retrieved his knife from atop the bundles and deftly ripped open the side of one. Rolls of new silver coin glistened in the light. "What do you see in this package, Amba.s.sador Hawksworth?"

"A king's ransom in silver."

"I'm surprised at you, Captain. For a seaman you have remarkably bad eyesight. What you see here, what came with you from Surat, is lead, Captain. Ingots of lead."

"That forty men died to protect."

"Those men died protecting you, Captain. Don't you remember? Your safety is very important to me. So important that it may be necessary to keep you under guard here in the fortress until this campaign is over. Look again at the bundle and tell me once more what you see."

"You can't hold me here. I have a safe conduct pa.s.s from the Moghul himself."

"Do you? Good. In that case there shouldn't be any difficulty. I'll only need to examine it to make sure it's not a forgery. There should be an opportunity sometime after I return from this campaign."

Hawksworth examined Jadar and realized the threat was not empty.

"There's no reason for me to stay. You have your lead."

Jadar smiled an empty grin, but with a trace of bizarre warmth. "At last we're beginning to understand each other. Neither of us has a Rajput's honor." He tossed Hawksworth the Portuguese stiletto. "An interesting knife. Did you know it took me almost two weeks to find out for sure who really hired the a.s.sa.s.sin? And for all that trouble it was exactly who you'd expect."

Hawksworth examined him in amazement, and decided to gamble another guess.

"I suppose I haven't thanked you yet for saving us from the Portugals'

ambush on the river, the day we made landfall."

Jadar waved his hand in dismissal. "Mere curiosity, nothing more. If I had allowed them to kill you, we could never have had this interesting talk. But you still have many troubles ahead."

"We both do."

"But I know who my enemies are, Captain. That's the difference."

The door had begun to swing slowly inward.

"Yes, these are interesting times, Captain. You may find it difficult to stay alive, but somehow I think you'll manage for a while longer."

Hawksworth watched nervously as the Rajput guards filed into the room and stationed themselves by the door.

"I plan to march south in ten days. You would be wise to leave tomorrow for the north, while the roads are still secure. Vasant Rao has asked to accompany you, and I'm afraid I have no choice but to humor him. I need him here, but he is a man of temperament. I will provide guards for you as far north as the Narbada River. After that he will hire his own hors.e.m.e.n. I'll give him a letter for a raja in Mandu, who can supply whatever he needs." Jadar studied Hawksworth one last time, his eyes calculating. "We both have difficult times ahead, but I think we'll meet again. Time may change a few things for both of us."

As Hawksworth pa.s.sed through the open doorway, he looked back to see the prince leaning easily aginst a stack of bundles, flipping a large silver coin. And suddenly he wanted to leave the fortress of Burhanpur more than he had ever wanted anything in his life.

The next morning Vasant Rao and forty hors.e.m.e.n were waiting with Hawksworth's cart. By midday they had left Burhanpur far behind, and were well on the way north. The journey north through Mandu, Ujjain, and Gwalior to Agra normally took six weeks, but when roads were dry it was an easy trip.

Two days later five prominent _mansabdars_ in the northern Deccan died painfully in separate ambushes by bandits. Their _jagirs_ were confiscated immediately by Prince Jadar. Ten days from that time he moved south with eighty thousand men and thirty thousand horse.

BOOK FOUR

AGRA

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Nadir Sharif leaned uneasily against the rooftop railing of his sprawling riverside palace, above the second-floor _zenana_, and absently watched his Kabuli pigeons wing past the curve of the Jamuna River, headed toward the Red Fort. They swept over the heavy battlements at the river gate and then veered precisely upward, along the sheer eastern wall of the fort, until they reached the gold minaret atop the Jasmine Tower, the private quarters of Queen Janahara. They circled her tower once, then coalesced into a plumed spear driving directly upward toward the dawn-tinged cloud bank that hovered over Agra from the east.

Imported Kabuli pigeons, with their flawless white eyes and blue-tipped wings, were Nadir Sharifs secret joy. Unlike the inferior local breeds of the other devoted pigeon-fliers along the west bank of the Jamuna, Agra's palace-lined showplace, his Kabulis did not flit aimlessly from rooftop to rooftop on their daily morning flight. After he opened the shutters on their rooftop grillwork cage, they would trace a single circle of his palace, next wing past the Red Fort in a salute to the queen, then simply disappear into the infinite for fully half a day, returning as regally as they had first taken wing.

Nadir Sharif was the prime minister of the Moghul empire, the brother of Queen Janahara, and the father of Prince Jadar's favorite wife, Mumtaz. Even in the first light of dawn there was no mistaking he was Persian and proud. The early sun glanced off his finely woven gauze cape and quickened a warm glow in the gold thread laced through his yellow cloak and his pastel morning turban. His quick eyes, plump face, and graying moustache testified to his almost sixty years of life, thirty spent at the Moghul court as close adviser to Arangbar and, before that, to Arangbar's father, the great empire-builder Akman. In power and authority he was exceeded only by the Moghul himself.

Nadir Sharifs palace was deliberately situated next to the Red Fort, just around the broad curve of the Jamuna. The Red Fort, home of the Moghul, was a vast, rambling fortress whose river side towered over a hundred feet above the western curve of the Jamuna. From Nadir Sharifs rooftop the view of the river side of the fort and Arangbar's _darshan_ window was un.o.bstructed.

Darshan was the dawn appearance Arangbar made daily at a special balcony in the east wall of the Red Fort, next to the river gate. It was strict custom that the chief officials of Arangbar's court also appear daily, on a high platform just beneath the _darshan_ balcony, where along with the Moghul they greeted the well-wishers who streamed in through the river gate and provided visual confirmation that India's rule was intact.

The square below the balcony--a gra.s.sy expanse between the side of the fort and the river wall, where Arangbar held noontime elephant fights and, on Tuesdays, executions by specially trained elephants--had already filled almost to capacity. Agra's most prominent n.o.blemen were there, as prudence required, and today there also were cl.u.s.ters of important visitors. Several Rajput chieftains from the northwest, astride prancing Arabian horses, pa.s.sed regally through the river gate and a.s.sumed prominent positions. Then a path was cleared for a large emba.s.sy of Safavid Persian diplomats, each of whose palanquins was borne by four slaves in gleaming velvet liveries; next several desert Uzbek khans in leather headdress rode into the square; and finally three Portuguese Jesuits in black ca.s.socks trooped through the river gate and moved imperiously to the front of the crowd.